The Vacant Boy
by captaingalileo
Summary: Three months after escaping WICKED and the explosions of the Right Arm; the Gladers, Group B and the rest of the Immunes are starting to realize that their paradise might not be as permanent as they thought. When Minho goes missing, leaving them leaderless, will Thomas be able to snap out of his troubled state and do what it takes to find his friend?
1. Chapter 1

"Tommy!"

_Newt, _Thomas thought. _Newt, is that you? _He searched for him in the darkness, hoping to catch a flash of his friend's blonde hair. _Newt, I never –_

"Thomas, you slinthead. Wake up!"

Thomas blinked open his eyes to see Gally. The boy's black hair had grown out to cover the majority of his scarred face, making it more bearable to look at without him feeling so guilty. "Wha-?"

"You get enough beauty sleep?" Gally's eyes narrowed but despite the scowl on his face, his brow furrowed from what appeared to be concern. "Minho took out a patrol this morning to cover the East border, said something about suspicious activity. The sun's about to set and the shucks haven't come back yet."

Thomas sat up and looked around the hand-made hut of branches. He hadn't remembered coming here to take a nap. "How did I-?"

"You don't remember, do you?" Gally snickered.

Thomas sat himself up and ran a hand through his hair. He felt a bump. "If I remembered, I wouldn't be asking," he responded with more patience than he had ever expected to give the obnoxious boy.

"Hit your head out on a hunt with me this morning. The forest and mountains are nothing like that maze of yours," Gally reminded him. "It's not all about running anymore."

It had nearly been three months since their group of 200 had escaped WICKED and the bombs of the Right Arm through the Flat Trans. Minho had become the group's new leader with little to no protest from the others and hadn't hesitated on setting order to the chaos. He had organized food search parties (accompanied by Frypan, of course), a building committee out of the remaining builders from the Glade and Group B and a security detail. To his surprise, Gally had become Minho's unofficial second-in-command. Back in the Glade, the two had constantly been at each other's throats but now the two shared enough mutual respect to tolerate each other and work together.

"Did you organize a search patrol yet?" Thomas asked.

"Yep." Gally offered him a hand up. "And you're in it. So wipe the sleep out of your eyes and let's go. We don't have much time and the others are waiting."

Thomas blinked in surprise. Gally's change of attitude toward him still caught him off guard sometimes. "Thanks," he muttered, taking the boy's hand. Gally nodded and let go as soon as he was on his feet then turned to head out into the clearing. He followed, feeling slightly disheveled.

Gally led him to a group of three other boys, one whom he recognized to be a Glader but the other two were completely unfamiliar to him. He supposed it would take more than three months for him to learn everyone's names and memorize their faces. "There's a lot of ground to cover and not enough daylight to kiss our eyes so we'll go as far as we can then make camp for the night. Charlie, what are you muttering about? Have a problem with my plan?"

Charlie, one of the non-Gladers who was probably a year or two younger than the both of them, flinched and looked down at his feet. "N-no, Captain Gally."

Thomas glanced at Gally in disbelief but the boy just flashed him a guilty smile and shrugged. "All right, let's go find our shuck-head leader."


	2. Chapter 2

The five of them headed out, each with a carved spear in one hand and a small sack of dried berries in the other. Out here in the wilderness, there wasn't much for them but despite that, Minho had tried to keep things like it had been in the Glade. Instead of Slicers and Sloppers, there were Hunters and Gatherers. Builders still existed but the most material they had to work with were the branches of trees and rocks. Runners were still around, but instead of keeping track of a maze, a runner's new duty was to patrol the borders and to keep track of the surrounding territory. New Keepers were decided as well. Gally was still the Keeper of the Builders but like Thomas and most of the others, he sometimes stocked up on duties and helped out with other things such as hunting. Brenda was the Keeper of the Gatherers. She turned out to be pretty smart when it came to what was edible and what was poisonous and befriended Frypan fast when it came to figuring out what meals could be made with what little they had. Minho had insisted Thomas be the Keeper of the Runners and do _something_ but he had objected to the position like he had objected to being the group's leader.

"When you snap out of this whole "My life sucks" klunk just let me know!" his Asian friend had snapped at him one day.

It was hard to control a group of 200 though and after everyone started to get comfortable, tension had begun to build. A month ago, a group of four men, five boys and three women had disobeyed orders from Minho.

"We're going to look for supplies and we don't need permission from a kid who thinks he's leader because of some tattoo on his neck to go and do so," the man who led the small group had growled.

"Fine. If you want to go and get your toes bitten off by a bunch of cranks, be my guest," was Minho's cold response. The group of twelve had headed out shortly after, leaving most of the Gladers, Group B and others to believe they were idiots. A few were hopeful though, thinking that maybe they would return alive and with something. Until three weeks had passed with no word from them, that is.

"Earth to Thomas! Space astronaut! Hello?"

"Ouch!" Thomas felt a jab of pain in his side and turned to see that Gally had jabbed him with the handle-side of his spear.

"Did you hear what I said?" Gally asked.

"Uh." Thomas looked around and noticed that the three other boys had stopped a few yards back.

"I said we're stopping here to make camp. Now come on."

Thomas turned back to follow him. "Already?"

"We've been walking for nearly an hour. Where have you been?"

Thomas shrugged. The two joined the others and after a minute, they began to settle down for the night. Gally had managed to start a fire but the chill air was picking up and Thomas didn't expect the flame to last for long. "Hey, Dan. Go fetch some firewood for us. Charlie, you go with him."

"No, I'll go," Thomas said, picking himself back up from the heap of ground that everyone now considered their bed. He looked at Dan, a boy with brown hair like his own but who was much taller than him and nodded.

As the two entered the woods, Gally shouted, "Have him back by midnight!" as if the two were heading out on some kind of date. He must have said or done something else after that, because Charlie and the other boy's laughter followed them for a few minutes before the forest filled with the chime of crickets and the occasional owl hoot.

"That Gally's a real work of art," he heard Dan mutter as he bent to retrieve a couple twigs.


	3. Chapter 3

"Think we have enough?"

Thomas looked at the pile of sticks Dan had collected and nodded. "Yeah," he said, raising his arms to show his own lot. "These should last us the night."

Dan smirked. "If not, we'll send Gally out on the next trip."

"Good that," Thomas responded, beginning to like the Glader. He had never gotten to know many of the Gladers back during his time in the Glade so it felt like he was making up for lost time.

The sun had set over a half an hour ago so after their few exchanged words, the two started back toward camp.

"It'd be mighty fine to have a flashlight 'bout now," Dan complained just as he stumbled over a tree root, scattering a few of his branches. He cursed in frustration and attempted to pick them back up. "I can't even see where I'm steppin'!"

"We're almost there," Thomas encouraged but as he turned to look on to the path ahead, he saw the flames of torch lights bobbling toward them. "Look, I think Gally got some torches together."

Dan stood straight. "There's five of 'em them," he muttered.

Thomas' stomach lurched. "Maybe they brought two extra for us." Though even as he said it, he knew he was wrong. As the torches continued toward them, five silhouettes flickered into view.

"No, I'm sure of it. Two of them left the camp and headed in this direction!" an unfamiliar voice insisted.

"Keep it down!" another unfamiliar, deeper voice of a man warned.

Thomas abandoned his sticks at the same time Dan abandoned his. As quietly as they could, the two crept backwards into the shadows of a bush.

"Think they're cranks?" Dan whispered.

"This far out?" Thomas asked in return.

"Look, over here!" The two Gladers fell silent as someone broke from the group and headed in their direction. A man who looked to be in his twenties came to the spot where the two boys had dropped their sticks and held up his torch to look around. "I don't reckon sticks pile themselves?" he asked.

"See!" said the first voice from before. It was hard to tell if the voice belonged to a girl or a boy who hadn't had his luck with puberty. "The two were sent out to collect wood for the fire."

"Probably scared them off," said a girl's voice.

"Ouch! Girl or not, touch me again and I'll hit you back."

"I'll hit the both of you if you don't shut it." The man who had spoke with the deep voice from before, appeared and knelt in front of the two piles of branches. "Couldn't have gone far," he mumbled to himself, peering forward toward where the two Gladers crouched, hidden inside the bush.

Thomas held his breath, almost certain that the man would spot them. He seemed to be looking right at him…

A moment of intense silence passed before the man averted his eyes and Thomas had to resist a sigh of relief. Then: "Split up, we'll cut them off."


	4. Chapter 4

As the five of them split up, Thomas gasped for air. The girl and the boy who had been bickering had doubled-back toward their camp while the others had continued on further into the forest. Behind him, he heard Dan mutter, "They're going to find us. They're going to shuckin' find us."

"No, they–"

"We're surrounded," Dan added before he could tell the boy otherwise.

Thomas crawled out from under the bush. "We've been out for over awhile now though, don't you think? It doesn't take that long to get wood for a fire. Gally must know something's–"

Dan pulled himself from the bush and stood. He shook his head and put a hand to his face. "Gally has one Glader and slinthead Charlie with him. If the three of them come looking for us and got jumped, they'd be no match for the five of those shanks."

"We have to get back to camp then," Thomas urged. "There are five of us together so if we make it back to the camp, we can even the odds."

The taller boy nodded once. "That's only if we can make it past those two shuck-heads."

"Come on." Thomas started forward and headed toward the now faint glow of torches. The two boys moved as quickly as they could, but it was hard when they still didn't know where they were putting their feet. Twice, Thomas tripped over something which caused Dan to topple over him.

When Dan had grown tired of this, he took the lead. Only to slam face-first into a tree. "I swear, that tree wasn't there a moment ago," the boy grumbled through a pinched nose.

Thomas looked around and suddenly noticed the absence of torches. "We lost them."

"Huh?" Dan looked around as well. "Well, shuck, no more North Star."

"Let's head in the same direction. The two couldn't have gotten too far," Thomas pointed out. He picked up the pace; luckily coming across a deer path that kept them from tripping over more tree roots and other unneeded obstacles. A few minutes later, an orange glow from one of the torches came back into view.

"Where's the other?" Dan asked.

As the two moved in closer, the girl came into view. She was close enough to see now that Thomas wasn't looking through a bush and to his surprise, she looked a lot older than she had sounded. Like the man who had come across their piles of wood, she appeared to be in her twenties. Her hair, blonde and covered in a layer of dirt, was matted and tangled. She looked just about as dirty as a Crank but with just the light from her torch, it was hard to be sure.

"She looks…" Dan's brow furrowed and he trailed off.

"Like a Crank?" Thomas tried.

"No, I mean, she looks—"

_Crack._ A branch snapped behind them but before Thomas could whirl his head around, a body was on him. Scratching, nails clawing at his face. Thomas let out a cry of pain and swung his arm back. He felt his elbow connect to a rib but not hard enough because whoever had his face in their grasp, held on.

"_Get off him, you shuckin' Crank!_" he heard Dan shout.

Thomas flung himself back, to pin his attacker who could only be the boy from before whom they had let out of their sight, but instead, the both of them became a rolling mess. "A little help!?" he called.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Dan exclaimed as he worked to dislodge the boy from him. He tugged at the boy's arms, sparing Thomas another slash from dirty, broken nails and enough time to gain control and turn the tables. He kicked out, connected his foot to the boy's chest and scrambled back.

Dan struggled to hold onto the boy, who looked a lot younger than them (But that might have been because he was short) and hissed when the boy's teeth sunk into his arm. "You little—"

Thomas' eyes caught a flash of blonde hair just as two hands and a massive rock appeared and slammed over Dan's head with a sickening thud. The Glader's arms dropped from around the boy and he fell to his side, limp.

Behind him stood the blonde-haired girl. Not quite satisfied, she sneered and slammed the rock down onto the Glader's head again.

"Stop!" Thomas leapt toward her as she raised the rock for what looked like a third blow but before he could reach her, the crazed boy tackled him from around the waist and sent him tumbling back to the ground. "_Get – off – me!_" He fought hard, and lashing out with a fist, hit the kid that clung to him like a leech in the face. That seemed to do the trick. With a roll and a kick, Thomas freed himself again. He hurried to his feet; met eyes with the girl who still stood over Dan, then turned and ran.

All he could do for the fallen Glader now was to lure the others from him, which to his relief, worked. Thomas chanced a glance back once and saw that the two were following, bare feet pounding against the earth. To his advantage, the two Cranks no longer had their torches. They could see just as well as he could, which wasn't that well at all. He dodged trees a second before collision, skidded around boulders and pushed through bushes that scratched at his already cut face to try to lose them. The camp was close, he could feel it and as he pushed through one last bush, he finally broke into the camp's clearing.

"Gally!" The Glader's name exhaled from his mouth but what his eyes met with were not his friend, but an empty camp with strewn supplies and a dead fire.


	5. Chapter 5

Thomas rushed forward into the heart of the camp where smoke from the fire Gally had started earlier still lingered in the air. He looked around; saw that the ground looked trampled and spotted one of their spears in the dirt a foot to his left, snapped in half. _What happened to them?_ he thought.

"Jasmine! Wait up!"

Behind him, he heard the rustling of bushes and remembered that he was being followed. He dove for the nearest bush just as the blonde-haired girl appeared.

"He's not here," she stated with frustration.

"He definitely came back here though." The short boy sniggered and stuffed his dirty hands into his tattered pants. "Must have thought he could meet up with his friends."

"Phoenix is not going to be pleased," the girl muttered. She glanced around the camp quickly and crossed her arms with a huff.

"Why?"

"_Because_, Logan, we let him get away!"

"We could keep looking if you want. He couldn't have gotten that far…" Thomas watched as the boy who's named turned out to be Logan, moved forward into the camp. "Besides, I doubt Phoenix will be that mad. We got one of them at least, right?"

The girl, who Logan had called Jasmine, sighed. "Right," she responded reluctantly.

Thomas shifted to try to get a better look at the two through the canopy of leaves. Logan had started toward his hiding spot when Jasmine continued, "We should head back to pick up the other boy before an animal gets to him."

"You hit him pretty hard. Twice too," the boy, Logan, recalled as he stopped and started back toward her. "Better hope he's not dead. You know if he is, Bernard will pitch a fit."

Again, the girl huffed. "If we get him back fast enough, it won't matter. Now come on, I can't carry that tall sloth by myself."

The two disappeared back through the bushes and after a few moments, Thomas followed. He knew he should head back to the village where the rest of the Gladers, Group B and other Immunes were to fetch help. It was the most logical choice but that was an hour's trek away and it would probably take even longer to get there in the dark. There wasn't enough time for that. His friends were in trouble and he had a disheartening feeling that he finally knew what happened to Minho and his missing patrol.

Ahead of him, Thomas could barely make out the outlines of the girl and boy but luckily, the two were loud enough to follow. Both had given up on stealth and instead, were shoving their way through bushes in a hurry to find and retrieve Dan which saved him from trouble the few times he had stumbled over a tree root or snapped a branch. He was surprised but relieved to hear that killing Dan wasn't their intention because that meant if Minho, Gally and the others had been caught, they could all very well still be alive. Perhaps all that was needed was a bargain to get them back.

"Here he is, Jas!"

Thomas stopped in his tracks and lowered himself close to the ground as the two Cranks came to a halt.

The boy was the first to find Dan. He bent down and pressed his fingers to the Glader's neck. "Well, be glad you didn't hit him a third time. There's still a heartbeat," he announced.

"Hooray," the girl responded with false enthusiasm. She leaned down to grab a hold of Dan's gangly arms as the boy struggled to keep a hold of his long legs. The two carried the tall Glader rather clumsily, and because they had to put him down and pick him back up several times; made their way through the woods at a much slower pace than before. Thomas made sure to keep his distance but kept them close enough in sight so that he wouldn't fall behind.

About what felt like a half hour later, Thomas caught a glimpse of light through the trees ahead of them and picked up on voices. The boy and girl, Logan and Jasmine, stopped with alarm but the hope Thomas had felt for a moment, fluttered and died inside him as the man from earlier, the one who had ordered to "cut them off" from escape, appeared with two others who must have been from earlier as well.

"Where's the other?" the man, who Thomas believed to be "Phoenix", asked.

"He—" Jasmine mumbled something inaudible then looked at Logan, who in turn, mumbled something too low for his ears to catch.

Thomas saw Phoenix's face contort underneath the flickering light of his torch. The outline of the man's mouth thickened and his eyes widened like that of an owl's. "You know what this means, right?" he asked, voice rising with every word. The two flinched. "If he makes it back, he'll have the whole village after us!"

"What do you want us to do then, sir?" the girl asked.

"Nothing. Get this lump—" Phoenix pointed at Dan, "—back to camp. You two,—" He nodded to the two subordinates beside him, "—head after the boy."

"Yes, sir," the two responded simultaneously before hurrying off.

Thomas pressed himself as close to the ground as he could get as they passed him. Then slowly he looked back up to see that Phoenix had turned to head after the Jasmine girl and the Logan boy who were still struggling to carry Dan.

"Bring him straight to Bernard," he heard Phoenix order as he pulled himself to his feet and started after them again. Their camp must have only been a few minutes away because voices rose up and as he grew nearer, camp fires could be seen through the trees that were no longer as close-knitted as before. He broke from the same path as the Cranks to find cover and survey the camp. Bushes seemed to be his new best friend lately because he ended up in another. He peered through its prickly branches and had to hold in a gasp of surprise. There were about twenty Cranks, roaming the camp or sitting around a campfire, laughing.

Thomas' gaze followed Dan's limp form as he was carried past the fires, toward a darker part of the camp. Was that where they were keeping the others? He went to reposition himself somewhere else and get closer, but suddenly a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Dan? Is that Dan? What are you doing with him, you shuckin' crazies!?"

Minho.

Thomas peered back out through the bushes and located what looked like a dark shed in the shadows, beyond the campfires where Minho's voice was coming from. Logan and Jasmine passed without a word and continued on to a hut farther back.

"Did you eat each other's ears off? What are you doing with him? Where are the others?" There was a loud _thump _which made Thomas believe that his friend had thrown his body against the door of the shed. It was hard to see from where he was, but he was sure that there was something on the outside of the door, preventing Minho and whoever else was inside from escaping. "Answer me you ugly broad!"

Jasmine paused, causing Logan to grabble with Dan's legs. "Don't worry, you'll get your turn," she told Minho cheerily before picking back up the pace.

Thomas watched with a sinking feeling as the two disappeared into the dark, toward the hut. He could still hear Minho shouting indecent words and causing a ruckus of noise from inside the shed, kicking the walls and door.

"Just wait until my Glade buddies get here!" was the last thing Minho roared, his voice cracking at the word _buddies_ before slamming his fist against the door. It was as if the action was Minho's final resolution, a _threat_ but Thomas knew otherwise. It was to cover up the fear he had heard in his voice.


End file.
